More than a month ago John Scott and the Buffalo Sabres ran roughshod over the Bruins in what might come to be known as Buffalo’s only shining moment of the season. Scott concussed Shawn Thornton with a few strong rights to the head in the first period, and then decided to throw an elbow at Rich Peverley’s head right in front of the Bruins bench for good measure after ambling out of the penalty box.

Right or wrong Zdeno Chara never acted in that game. Consequently both Chara and the Bruins looked out of sorts for the rest of that game in their undisputed worst loss of the season. Fast forward to Sunday night, and the Bruins held a tidy one goal lead on the Montreal Canadiens with less than five minutes to go in the second period.

That’s when Montreal defenseman Alexei Emelin caught Tyler Seguin with a cross-check to the ribs right in front of the Boston bench. The force of the check snapped the Habs’ attackers stick just as Seguin went down in obvious, howling pain. It just so happens the 21-year-old was having one of his best games of the season and had already racked up a goal and an assist in the first two periods.

So Chara didn’t wait to see if a penalty was going to be called, or if Seguin was seriously injured on the dirty Emelin play. He simply saw a cold, calculated act against a Bruins player with a target on his back. So Chara went right for the corner and smacked into Emelin into the boards and starting roughing up the Russian defenseman for trying to hurt one of Boston’s most skilled players.

"The main thing was I saw that Tyler was hurt. We have to protect each other,” said Chara. “I'll do it for anybody but in the situation, it was natural for me to react. He is one of our best players.

“We really are brothers over here. We play for each other. We protect each other. That's the unity we always talk about.”